‘Miserable and Dangerous’: A Failed Chinese Promise in Serbia

Zoran Dedic, a retiree in Zrenjanin who attended a recent public meeting hosted by Mr. Zivkov, said he did not object to foreign investment. But he expressed alarm that so much information about the Chinese tire factory, particularly future levels of pollution, had not been made public and that Ling Long, while donating money to send local children to soccer camp, had not engaged in serious discussion with residents.

“We know nothing about what is going on over there,” he said.

Marija Andjelkovic, the head of Astra, an independent group in Belgrade that monitors and lobbies against human trafficking, said she visited the construction site late last year and found Vietnamese workers sleeping in hovels without heat or clean water. “It was like a prison camp,” she said.

Labor contracts signed by Vietnamese workers with China Energy Engineering Group, a Ling Long subcontractor overseeing construction, commit each worker not to engage in trade union activities, and to “refrain from anything that would detract from his reputation or the reputation” of the Chinese company.

Even more restrictive are the terms set by recruitment agencies in Vietnam. One agency, Song Hy Gia Lai International, demanded that all workers going to Europe sign a document pledging never to go on strike or protest.

The document appears to have been copied and pasted from agreements originally drafted for laborers recruited in Vietnam for work in the Middle East: It warns that workers going to Serbia risk having their hands cut off if they steal.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/world/europe/china-serbia-vietnamese-workers.html